Sunday, May 11, 2014

2014 USASA Nationals Re-Cap #3

SBX
Practice days, hosted by the Rocky Mountain Series, are awesome. You’ve got access to the course for 3 hours
each day with a limited number of participants.
Most of the skiers/riders there are pretty good and are working with a
Coach/Race Team so you get to watch a lot of solid riding during practice as
well.

Copper Course - Practice Version

Ale from
Team Haleakala was present for Mountain Athlete led Coaching during all 3 days
of practice.On Day #2 a fellow Mens’
Legend Racer, Brad O’Neill, joined us, and on Day #3 Jams Woman Anike Vanagas
was part of the training crew.

There
was a great atmosphere/energy created with these athletes working together and
we had a lot of fun during the practice sessions. Everyone showed solid improvement and
progress during their time on the SBX Course.

Anike Feeling Psyched After Practice

Practice
Day #1 was focused on fundamentals, course line and building speed.Day #2 provided more of an opportunity to
work on starts, reinforce skills from Day #1 and practice passing/riding with
multiple competitors while increasing speed throughout the session.During Day #3 we spent time reviewing skills
and then went through a mock Race Day (there’s no video as we were treating it
as if it was actually race day – no POV cameras allowed).Afterward we focused on solid starts and
hitting our lines at full speed in race situations.Check out the videos to see some of the
riding from practice.

Unfortunately
there was one glaring let down at training -- due to a request from the USASA,
Copper did not build out a full course for the practice days. The closest it got to a complete course was
on Day #3, but even then the bottom section (finish stretch) was blocked
off. The good news was we were able to
use the available portions of the course to practice our skills, technique and
strategy to ramp up for Race Day, though we had to modify or efforts to some degree.

Each
day after practice we reviewed video and ate lots of good food (thanks to Ale’s
cooking skills). Though often
overlooked, nutrition is an extremely important aspect to performing well on
the racecourse. Ale and I use Generation UCAN before training and racing with great results. I also drink a serving before working out in the gym. You can read more about my UCAN experience here. Having our nutrition
dialed in makes Race Day efforts go that much smoother.

BBQ, Fresh Slaw and Homemade Cornbread

No Explanation Needed

There
was one other cool activity we checked out during practice week –- BKPro Academy Waxing Clinic
hosted by former Olympic Coach, and Shaun White’s Coach, Bud Keene.Ryan McDermott, from Mono Cera, was also on
hand to assist Bud with the seminar (more about Ryan and Mono Cera later).It was fun to learn new tuning tricks while listening
to some cool stories about Bud’s experiences with Olympic Athletes from all
across the World.